


Caution, Student Driver

by ProtoNeoRomantic



Series: Patch Works [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: "Mom I'm a Vampire Slayer", Adult-Teen Relationship, Delivery Day, F/M, Forbidden Love, Leaving "For Your Own Good", Mother-Daughter Relationship, Teen Pregnancy, The Burden of Slayerness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Buffy tells Joyce that she's having a baby, she thinks it is the most shocking news she will get that night.  It isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caution, Student Driver

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Lady's Choice](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1223416) by [ProtoNeoRomantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoNeoRomantic/pseuds/ProtoNeoRomantic). 



Joyce knew she couldn’t let herself get out of the habit of coming home by five-thirty every day, or at least by six o’clock, but she just couldn’t face going home right now. She procrastinated, stopping at the bookstore instead to browse through titles like ‘A Mom’s Guide to Dealing with Teen Pregnancy’ and ‘What a Crisis Pregnancy Means for Your Troubled Teen’.

All the books were filled with great advice on what she should say to Buffy... if only Buffy would actually talk to her... and if Buffy had been a completely different girl... with completely different parents... and a completely different life. There were no chapters what to do when your daughter is pregnant by a dead eyed monster who might kill her at any time, for example. She bought a couple of them anyway, to justify the stop.

Buffy had dinner on the table when she walked in at 6:15, thanks once again to the magic of the crock pot. She’d even made a gallon of iced tea and set the table complete with placemats and napkin rings. She was sitting there in the dining room, wearing a nice, conservative outfit, drumming her fingers nervously on the table cloth like a person with a lot of energy to burn. Or something important to say.

It couldn’t be that easy, Joyce warned herself. Buffy wasn’t just about to open up to her in complete honesty less than twenty-four hours after learning the truth herself. If so, should she have guilt about digging through her garbage and talking to Hank behind her back?

“Hey there, Mom,” Buffy said nervously, “rough day?... Not that you look like you had a rough day, I mean you look great, it’s just, you know a little late... not that it’s any of my... I mean you’re allowed to be late... you’re the... the...mom.”

The stunned way Buffy said that last word broke Joyce’s heart. She sat down next to Buffy. “Whatever it is, honey,” she assured her, “you can tell me.”

“Your remember that ‘Talk’ we had a couple of weeks ago?” Buffy asked.

“Vaguely,” said Joyce with gentle sarcasm.

“Alright, I guess it was a memorable evening for everyone,” Buffy conceded. “But, I think we need to have another Talk. I don’t want to keep shutting you out of my life. I want to let you into my life, but I have to warn you that my life is really, really scary.”

“Go ahead,” said Joyce, “scare me.”

“I wasn’t careful,” Buffy said flatly. “Mom,” she went on, speaking deliberately, definitely, “I’m having a baby.”

Joyce blinked, trying to absorb the shock. She had thought she’d been prepared for what Buffy was going to say. But she hadn’t been prepared for the way she said it. It was more than a statement of fact, it was a plan of action, a course already decided upon. No advice needed, no consultation, no more than a day’s deliberation to reach a decision that could not help but turn both of their lives upside down. Joyce felt more shut out than ever. As always, Buffy was in the driver’s seat, careening all over the road, and all she could do was go along for the ride.

Worse still, her mind’s eye was arrested by the memory of looking into Angel’s eyes a few days earlier. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to bring the offspring of that... creature... into her home, into her family. Yet Buffy had decided to do exactly that.

“Mom?” Buffy asked after a long moment. “Are you alright? Say something.”

“Oh, Buffy,” Joyce breathed, between a sigh and a moan, “please tell me it’s not _his_.”

Buffy hung her head. She had no idea what to say. Her mom had met Angel once when he still had a soul, but only briefly. Their later meetings had clearly been more memorable. Even without knowing what he was, she knew what he was. Buffy hated for her mom to have to think the child was his. But there was no one else she could safely accuse. She was tempted to name a student or two who had died recently, but that would have been unfair to their families to say the least. “Yeah,” she mumbled without looking up, “It’s Angel’s baby.”

***

 Buffy didn’t have to worry about waking up for her patrol that night. She couldn’t have slept if she had wanted to. She lay awake in the dark like a cat, ears pricked up to listen for the sounds and silences that would tell her her mother had gone to sleep at last.  Instead, she heard a soft knock at her door. "Still up," Joyce asked.  

Buffy nodded and scooted over for her mom to sit down on the bed.  "I can't stop thinking," she admitted.

"Well," her mom asked, "what do you think?"

“I think the time has come to start telling you the truth," Buffy said, "about my life, about everything.”

Joyce held Buffy out at arm’s length and looked at her, “that was too easy,” she teased, “what’s the catch.”

“The catch is,” Buffy said seriously, “this time you have to believe me. This time you have to give me a chance to show you the truth.”

“This time?” asked Joyce puzzled, “when did you try to tell me about your life before?”

Buffy sighed, “Too long ago,” she admitted. “Come on, Mom,” she added decisively, getting to her feet, “we need to get dressed, I have to show you something.”

“Now?” Joyce asked, “but it’s the middle of the night.”

“No better time,” said Buffy cryptically, selecting a blouse, slacks and light vinyl jacket from her closet, deliberately choosing something more conservative than her usual patrolling gear.

“Where are we going?” Joyce asked.

Buffy smiled, “Where I go every night,” she said, “to the library.”

***

Giles was just locking up, leaving the library through the back door, when he saw the car pull up. He put his hand on the cross in his coat pocket, in case of vampires, but it turned out to be Buffy... and her mother... coming onto campus... parking behind the library... at eleven o’clock at night.

They had to be there looking for him, but why? He could think of some fairly unpleasant possibilities, but he couldn’t really credit the idea that Buffy would have revealed their relationship, even under pressure from both of her parents. He knew first hand that it took a hell of a lot to pressure Buffy Summers, especially when she felt strongly committed to something. It was possible; however, given the conversation he had had with Joyce this afternoon, that he had been accused and that he would now be called upon to confirm Buffy’s denials.

Screwing up his courage, he walked up to the car and leaned into the window that Joyce rolled down. “This is a surprise,” he said in a way that successfully implied it was more or less a pleasant one. The expressions on the two women’s faces were perhaps a little tense, but fairly neutral. No one looked much like hitting him in the head with an ax at any rate. “Did you... forget something?” he asked Buffy.

“No,” Buffy said with quiet gravity. “I need your help with something. Get in.”

Giles was confused, and it showed on his face. Joyce, no less so. “What is going on?” she demanded of Buffy.

“I told you, Mom” Buffy insisted, “you just have to trust me, and you’ll see.”

“Buffy,” Giles asked, getting a strong inkling of what was happening, “are you sure about this?”

“About _what_?” Joyce repeated.

Buffy gave Giles a very sure look. He got in the car, sitting behind Buffy to avoid making Joyce any more nervous than was necessary. It was evident that he was being enlisted to help confront Joyce with the truth of Buffy’s calling, and that it would take more than simple words from him to do so. He had read Merrick’s reports of what had happened in Los Angeles when Buffy had tried to take her parents into her confidence against his advice.

If Buffy had come to him in advance, as she should have, he would have given her the same advice yet again. The risks of what could happen if Joyce disbelieved her again were simply too great, though he had to admit, the benefits of having her cooperation in Buffy’s late-night activities were getting greater all the time. But that hardly mattered now. It was evidently clear to Joyce that she had been brought here to learn momentous secrets regarding Buffy and himself. Even if he could have found a moment to try to talk Buffy out of the revelations she intended, Joyce would simply assume others in their place, and the results would be at least as bad.

Buffy must have known all of that he realized, not without some resentment. She was deliberately painting him into a corning. She was in the driver’s seat, and he had no choice but to come along for the ride. “What has Buffy told you so far?” he asked Joyce.

“Not a Goddamned thing,” said Joyce, confusion giving way to anger. “So why don’t you tell me what they hell is going on between you and my daughter.”

“Mom,” said Buffy gently serious, “I’m a Vampire Slayer. Mr. Giles is my Watcher. He works with me. We battle the forces of evil. That’s where I’ve been going every night.”

“Oh no,” said Joyce, horrified. “It’s happening again.”

“No, Mrs. Summers,” Giles confirmed. “I assure you, Buffy is quite sane and what she is telling you is quite true. Though I don’t quite see the wisdom in this method of disclosure,” he added, primarily addressing Buffy now, “especially under the circumstances.”

Buffy winced. Joyce’s eyes widened. Giles realized his mistake too late. “What do you know about Buffy’s ‘circumstances’?” Joyce demanded.

“I’m her Watcher,” he stated, with all of the authority he could muster, all too aware of how insane he must sound to her. “She tells me everything.”

That was evidently the wrong thing to say. “Whell,” said Joyce, sarcastically, “I’m glad she has someone she can _trust_ to confide in(!)”

“I know this is difficult to understand...” Giles attempted.

Joyce scoffed, “Oh, I understand perfectly. Either you’re indulging these... fantasies in order to take advantage of my daughter, or you’re as crazy as she is! Please get out of my car.”

“Stay,” said Buffy. Giles stayed.

Joyce was near boiling now, “I cannot believe I let you talk me into coming out here in the middle of the night for this!” she scolded Buffy. “I must be losing _my_ mind.”

“We need a demonstration.” Buffy said to Giles calmly.

“Well, if you’d given me a few days warning,” he replied tersely, “I’m sure I could have come up with one.”

“You could have, but you wouldn’t have,” Buffy replied coolly. “You’ve always shut me down every time I’ve mentioned telling Mom I’m the Slayer. But, I can’t go on like this anymore. I need my Mom, Giles. I need to be able to talk to her about my life. I need her to know who I am, what I am. I need her support, especially now.”

In spite of the insane circumstances, Joyce was genuinely touched to hear this. Buffy was reaching out to her at last. Buffy needed her help, and by God, she was going to get it. She put the car in gear.

“What? Where are we going?” Mr. Giles asked, startled.

“To the hospital,” Joyce replied coolly, pulling out onto the street, “and you’d better hope they check you in too, because if not, I’m calling the police.”

Giles opened his mouth to protest, but could hardly think of what to say. His mind ran on possibilities of escape, but he couldn’t think of any that would neither harm Joyce nor prevent him from showing his face in Sunnydale thereafter. For an instant he wondered if Buffy really had gone mad. What the devil was she hoping to achieve by putting them both in jeopardy like this?

“What day is it?” Buffy asked in a cheerful, casual way.

“Wednesday,” Giles replied puzzled, “the fourth of March.” Then it came to him. He suppressed a smile. How could he have forgotten? It was the first Wednesday of the month: delivery day at the ER. Only a modest amount of luck would be required to find a vampire for Buffy to slay. A demonstration.

Joyce shook her head. It made her very nervous having this unnervingly sane seeming lunatic in her car, especially knowing he knew where they were going, but he seemed oddly resigned to come quietly. She made doubly sure that all the locks were set so that only she could open them. Minutes later, she pulled up near the walk-in entrance to the ER at Sunnydale General.

Tonight, Buffy’s luck was more than moderate. Standing in the parking lot, near the ambulance bay doors, trying to look casual in their human faces, were two young, nervous vampires. Effortlessly forcing the lock on her door, Buffy hopped out, and leapt straight at them. Their faces were demonically transformed to reveal their true nature. Grabbing one by the collar, while the other fled in terror, Buffy flung her intended victim against the hood of her mother’s car.

Joyce whipped around, startled, in the direction of Buffy’s now vacant seat then back to the battle in front of her, not seeming to comprehend how her daughter had gotten from one place to the other. When she understood the barest outline of what was happening, she tried to open her own door and get out.

Giles clapped a firm, restraining hand on her shoulder, pinning her to her seat. She let out a startled gasp. “Just watch,” he told her in a voice of calm, assured authority.

Joyce did watch, eyes wide with horror, as her pregnant seventeen-year-old daughter knelt on top of the evil-faced stranger that she had just thrown onto the hood of the car and savagely rammed some sort of a sharp, pointed weapon into his chest. He exploded in a cloud of dust. Buffy fell against the windshield, catching herself with her left hand. What Joyce now realized was a wooden stake was still clutched in her right, inched from her mother’s face.

Buffy’s expression was businesslike for a moment, then she grinned, twirling her stake like a gun slinger and did a one hand spring off the SUV, landing on her feet a good five yards away in the direction that the second demonic stranger had fled. She bounded after him, graceful as a cat. Even Giles was astonished by her athleticism. She was pulling out all the stops, outdoing herself for Joyce’s benefit.

For the endless minute that she was gone, both adults held their breath. Giles released his grip on Joyce’s shoulder without even realizing it. She made no further moves to get out of the car. Buffy returned, dragging the hapless creature up to Joyce’s window by both arms, which she had twisted together behind its back in a way that implied something might have been broken in the process. The demon was actually crying.

“Mom,” she said, in a cheerful deadpan, “this is Grant; Grant this is my, mom, Joyce Summers. Go on, Grant, tell her what you are.”

“I’m a vampire,” it muttered miserably.

“What was that?” Buffy asked, twisting its mangled arms a little tighter.

“I’m a vampire!” the thing spat savagely.

“And what do you do for a living... so to speak?”

“Look, I’m just a blood dealer,” he pleaded, “I’m not hurting anyone. I haven’t killed anyone in months, I swear. Please, Slayer, please, I’ll go clean, nothing but butcher’s blood I swear, just please, please let me go!”

Buffy sighed. “You know, you’re really taking the fun out of this for me,” she said with only half feigned disappointment. “How you doing there, Mom?” she asked briskly, turning her attention back to Joyce.

“I... don’t know,” Joyce breathed. “Buffy, what is happening?”

“I told you, Mom,” she said, plunging her stake into Grant’s back, pausing only a moment as he fell to the parking lot, a pile of dust, “I’m a Vampire Slayer.”

“She is the Chosen One,” Giles confirmed gravely, “she alone will stand against the vampire, and demons and the forces of darkness.”

“Oh, God,” Joyce gasped, “... all this time...?”

“Going on two years now,” Buffy confirmed still smiling.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Joyce asked, seeming to grasp for an emotion that it made sense to feel.

“Uh, I did,” Buffy pointed out with a little bit of attitude, “And you had me locked up in a nut house for two weeks, just like you were about to do five minutes ago. Remember?”

“Oh Buffy... I don’t know what to say...All this time.... Oh my God, I’m a terrible mother!”

“No,” Buffy assured her, her tone becoming gentle again, “you’re not. Most moms would do what you did, and still might even after something like this. I should have tried harder to make you see the truth sooner. I should have known you’d be able to handle it. I was just... afraid. Because what if you couldn’t? And then I would have gotten locked up and had to break out and go into hiding maybe, and I couldn’t stand that. Mom, I need you. This is my life, and I want to share it with you at last.”

Joyce was quiet for a moment; then she said, “Oh, thank God! When you dragged me out in the middle of the night and told me you’d been going to the library all this time, I thought you were going to tell me you two were having an affair.”

Buffy blushed and rolled her eyes with authentic embarrassment. “I said I was going to share my life with you,” she reminded her mother, “not ruin my life.”

‘Now there is a certain text,’ Giles thought, as Buffy got back in the car, glad that neither she nor Joyce could really see the expression on his face. Buffy had not actually denied their relationship but only disavowed an intent to make any such confession tonight. He was beginning to sense a second stage to her plan of revelation.

With a thrill of wonder and horror all in one, he realized that Buffy was both serious and certain in her plans. He was going to be a father! And, if he wasn’t extremely careful, he was going to be drummed out of the Council for ruining his Slayer.

At that moment, he didn’t know if he wanted to kiss Buffy or kill her. There she sat in the front seat, filling her mother in almost cheerfully about her life as the Slayer and her romance with the vampire Angelus. She was evidently quite relieved to have all of this out in the open at last. Clearly, she thought she had it all worked out. She’d spend the next few weeks or months getting her mother used to the idea of her relationship with Giles by increments until at last all would be understood and forgiven.

The whole notion was appallingly childish and naive in the extreme. It sparked a realization in him. He could say what he liked about Buffy’s maturity. Indeed, she was mature for her age. She was a brave, resourceful, formidable young woman who would someday be far more than a match for him. But she was still seventeen to his forty-seven, Slayer to his Watcher, student to his teacher. He didn’t have the right to translate that relationship into an opportunity to cut short the natural progress of her social life and keep her for himself. If Buffy was determined to be a mother at seventeen, she still deserved the chance to be, in every other way, a free person (or as free as a Slayer could be) and someday (if there was a someday) to find a suitable partner with whom she could be truly happy.

“You’re awfully quiet back there,” Buffy said.

“Oh...sorry, just...lost in thought I suppose,” he murmured. How as he going to tell her? How could he possibly explain that, though he did love her, she deserved better that to be chained to a middle aged man with a past full of secrets and lies before she’d even finished the eleventh grade? The rose quartz lay heavily against his chest. He would have to find a way. He had to keep controlling himself, to keep letting Buffy go. It was the mature, responsible, grown-up thing to do.

“Well,” said Buffy, not content to leave him to his thoughts, “I was sort of hoping you could fill Mom in a little bit about the Hellmouth. Which, by the way, did you get any ideas about today’s ghostly goings on?”

“Erm...well,” he started hesitantly, not at all comfortable discussing the matter in front of Joyce, but seeing no graceful way out of it. “It is a ghost, I’m fairly certain, a poltergeist in fact. In this type of... haunting, you see, the spirit... it’s trapped, unable to move on to the next world, and so it lashes out. There was another... reenactment tonight, a boy and his girlfriend, playing the same scene as Oz and Willow. The Janitor and I had to separate them. The gun, once again was nowhere to be found.”

“So what can we do about it?” Buffy asked.

“What’s a Hellmouth?” asked Joyce.

“It’s an...erm... sort of a portal,” Giles explained, answering the question he was most comfortable with, “a center of mystical convergence that can be used as a sort of a gate between worlds. Also a source of enormous demonic energy, which is what makes Sunnydale such an...erm _interesting_ place to live.”

“And such a fun and easy place to die,” said Buffy with mock cheerfulness. “Monsters are drawn to it,” she explained.

“Oh, God,” said Joyce, horrified again, “that’s awful. Where is this... thing.”

“Under the library,” said Buffy casually.

“It is closed, for the time being,” Giles tried to reassure her.

“And now there’s a ghost too,” Joyce noted, not calming down.

“Which, I ask again,” said Buffy, “means we need to do what exactly?”

“Well,” said Giles, “generally speaking, the only way to free a trapped spirit is to work out whatever unresolved issues keep it here and... resolve them.”

“Great,” said Buffy, “now we’re Dr. Laura for the deceased.”

“Should we drop you off at your car?” Joyce asked as the school came into sight, “or did you want to come back to the house and discuss... all this some more?”

“Oh...” said Giles, “I think perhaps you’d better drop me off, it’s getting late. I’ll... see you in the morning Buffy.”

“Okay, I guess,” said Buffy, puzzled. Something about this ghost business seemed to be making him uncomfortable. Or was it just the fact that he was approaching his place of employment at midnight with his bail violating, pregnant, seventeen-year-old girlfriend and her emotionally overloaded mother? Whatever the reason, he seemed anxious to get away. Buffy watched him hurry to his car without any further words of parting, trying not to take it personally. After all, this was no place to hang around outside at night.

“So...” said Joyce as they headed back towards the house, bravely stepping up to the challenge of taking an interest in her daughter’s actual, very scary life, “I guess we need to start thinking about who this ghost might be.”

“That’s true,” Buffy agreed. “We have to know that if we’re ever going to figure out what it wants.”

“What about that teacher?” Joyce suggested, “Ms. Calendar? She died there pretty recently.”

Buffy shook her head, “I don’t think so. All of the... paranormal stuff that I’ve seen seems to center around a... lover’s quarrel of some kind. And there was a gun involved. Angel killed Ms. Calendar with his bare hands.”

“Oh God,” said Joyce miserably for the millionth time, “it’s just so awful.”

“See,” Buffy teased, “all those time you asked me what was wrong, I _told_ you you didn’t want to know.”

“I wonder...” Joyce mused, “if we shouldn’t move. You’re Aunt Arlene says they have some great schools in southeastern Illinois.”

“Mom,” Buffy said, shaking her head patiently, “I can’t just leave. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is _my_ Hellmouth; I’m responsible for it, 24-7, for the rest of my life.”

 


End file.
